


Softer Than Clay

by mokumera (apricari)



Category: One Piece
Genre: Ace Lives, Alternate Universe, Angst, Blowjobs, Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Assault, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:27:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26882149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apricari/pseuds/mokumera
Summary: “Why don’t you heal yourself?” Smoker says.“Burned myself out.”“Don’t bullshit me.”“I’m not kidding,” says Portgas. He reaches for Smoker’s hand, touches the back with his fingers. His skin is—not freezing, but it may as well have been. Compared to how hot Smoker knows he runs, he’s corpse cold.“Couldn’t use my power if I wanted to.” He pulls his hand away. “I wanted to know if you could help with that, actually,” he says. “I figured if anyone could set me right again, it would be you.”
Relationships: Portgas D. Ace/Smoker
Comments: 7
Kudos: 67





	Softer Than Clay

Pungent smoke drifts across the razed field, stinking of sappy wood and waste. The burnt oval where Teach’s corpse had been has finally stopped smoldering. Past a certain point of burning, it had simply dissolved into purple darkness, vanishing in the night.

“We’ve found seven more survivors, sir.”

“Good. Do we have enough rations?”

“Yes, sir. But we’re running low on medical supplies. The Straw Hats have offered to pool their resources with our own. They’re ready to meet with us now.”

His unit skirt the spot as they look for survivors, as if it’s cursed. Smoker can see them from the railing of his ship, small moving figures in the distance.

“Commodore?”

“Let’s go, Tashigi.”

Tashigi follows him down the gangplank to the ship waiting at the other end of the small bay.

Some of the Straw Hats have surfaced on the deck of the Thousand Sunny. All but one continue past Smoker and Tashigi, presumably to search for more survivors. Four of them are out searching already. The one who remains—the navigator—approaches them with her hands on her hips and a determined look in her eyes.

“Medical supplies only for now? Rations are okay?”

“Yes,” Tashigi speaks up.

“Good. Come with me.”

She guides them below deck. The ship is what Smoker expects; bright paint with a lawn outside.

Finally he sees him. Portgas is with his brother. They sit close together, exchanging quiet words, half hidden behind a privacy curtain. Smoker can only see Straw Hat’s face. He looks older than Smoker had ever seen him, exhausted, more than when he was hanging off seastone bars underneath Rain Dinners. There is uncharacteristic worry on his face. Portgas seems to be comforting him. Smoker thinks if he overheard their conversation, they would be speaking in a language only they know.

“There.” The navigator passes a list to Tashigi while Smoker picks up a crates supplies. “The rest will all be brought up to the deck, you can send you men up to collect. Chopper and I will be here. Sure you don’t need rations?”

“No, ah...Miss Nami.” Tashigi takes her own crate. “Thank you. We’ll be quick about it.”

“You all just do your jobs and help these people, alright?” Her voice is stern, but she smiles when Tashigi nods. “Good. Nice to see you again, but I have to ask you to leave now. You know the way.”

Portgas is talking with the little doctor now. Now Smoker can only catch a glimpse of them between the curtain as they pass. Straw Hat glances over Portgas’ bandaged shoulder; their eyes lock. His expression shifts to a piercing stare before his gaze flicks back to his brother.

As Smoker and Tashigi leave, the four Straw Hats who had been out searching are returning to the Thousand Sunny. They’re clearly drained, and they don’t acknowledge Smoker or Tashigi, even the cook.

Tashigi speaks once they’re halfway to their own ship. “I’ve got a plan on how to best distribute these, sir, if I could have your approval...”

“Whatever is necessary. I trust your judgement.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Designate the execution to Littlegrove and go take a break. She can handle things while you’re away.”

“But, sir...”

“You’re no use when you’re dead on your feet,” he reminds her. He understands her reluctance. Seventy-two hours since they arrived and they’re still finding survivors. Despite her expression, Tashigi salutes him and leaves.

-

In the evening, before they call off the search for the day, Nico Robin approaches him. “Commodore,” she says. “Come with me, please.”

“Your captain wants to see me, he should come over himself.”

“Not my captain,” she says, with a gleam in her eye.

Smoker lights another pair of cigars. He’ll smoke them and another pair before he’s to the ship, he’s sure. “Keep to the schedule,” he tells Tashigi.

Tashigi’s eyes flick from him to Nico Robin and back again. “Yes sir.”

Nico Robin guides him back to the Thousand Sunny in silence. Smoker knows where he’s going before they arrive at the med bay.

The kid is there, alone. He’s sitting on the bed with a odd bend to his back, torso bandaged and blotched with bruises. He looks like he’s in pain.

“Hey, old man,” he says with a lopsided smile.

Smoker takes the spindly chair and can only look at him. Doesn’t know what to say. His fists are clenched.

“Look like shit, huh?” Ace breaks the silence.

“Why don’t you heal yourself?” Smoker says.

“Burned myself out.”

“Don’t bullshit me.”

“I’m not kidding,” says Portgas. He reaches for Smoker’s hand, touches the back with his fingers. His skin is—not freezing, but it may as well have been. Compared to how hot Smoker knows he runs, he’s corpse cold.

“Couldn’t use my power if I wanted to.” He pulls his hand away. “I wanted to know if you could help with that, actually,” he says. “I figured if anyone could set me right again, it would be you.”

Smoker‘s hand flexes, open and closed. Never had the boy been cold like that. “A Marine commodore giving Fire Fist Ace his power back?”

“You’re really gonna pull that card now? Fucked me for months and now you’re gonna try to have the moral high ground?”

His neck is bandaged. Smoker can still tell he’s bruised underneath, worse than anywhere else; it must be completely black beneath the dressings. That must be where the seastone had been clasped to the kid, choking him. Smoker remembers every time he’s pressed his mouth to that neck and felt a wild pulse there before skin sparked and turned into flame.

“How do you know it’ll work?”

“I don’t. What else is there to try?”

“You took Teach out with your power,” says Smoker. “What happened after that?”

The kid looks like he’d really rather not talk about it. “I passed out,” he says. “All I know is when I flared up—after the seastone came off—I’d...I’d never felt more powerful. Except when it’s you and I.” His mouth twists into a hollow smile. “And we usually have the opposite problem, don’t we?

“Then it all went away. I can feel it there.” He touches his chest. “I just can’t...get to it.”

Smoker takes a deep drag on his cigars and exhales. “You know this is different.”

“With my rank you’d be executed for either—“

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about.” Portgas is clearly taken aback. “Did you assume I’d say yes, I’ll help you, kid? Whitebeard’s second?“

“I—“

“You think I can’t find room in my brig for you among the crew whose captain you gutted?”

His face shutters. “Not fucking funny.”

The door opens. It’s the little doctor with a determined expression.

“Visiting time is over,” he says to Smoker. “Please leave now. Robin will see you off the ship.”

Nico Robin escorts him to the gangplank and watches him go.

-

“They destroyed everything we had,” the woman says, voice shaking. Her kid stands in front of her, her arms wrapped around his shoulders protectively. “They...my husband...”

Tashigi touches her arm. “We’ll keep searching, ma’am.”

The woman nods, tears welling. Slowly, she guides her son towards the rations line.

“How long do you predict we’ll be here, Commodore?” Tashigi asks.

“Another two weeks for the assistance. Our rations should keep up until then.” The number of survivors they have been finding has dwindled to two a day. Littlegrove calculates the city on Banaro has lost over a quarter of it’s population. Hundreds dead.

Tashigi looks towards the Thousand Sunny. “Sir, how long do you think...?”

The people of Banaro have taking a liking to the pirates. Ever survivor expresses a range from wary mistrust to outright defensive rage to learn there are still pirates on their island, but their demeanor quickly changes when they see the help given by the Straw Hats. The crew keeps their mood light and are generous with their aid. Smoker’s sense of Justice once again called into question.

“A few days at most.”

“And Fire Fist?” She asks.

Smoker draws on his cigars, briefly contemplating reprimanding her. “He’ll go back to Whitebeard.”

-

A soft rapping comes from beyond his door close to midnight. The door opens. It’s Portgas, with a shirt buttoned over his bandaged torso. When he spies Smoker at his desk, his expression goes soft.

He’ll have to run his crew through twice the drills for letting a pirate aboard without sounding the alarm.

“Should you be out of bed?”

“Shut up.”

“I’m not fucking you with your back fucked up.”

“How considerate,” says Portgas dryly. “Did I say I came here so you could fuck me?”

Smoker snuffs his cigars and puts them in the ashtray. “Why the hell else would you be here?”

Portgas climbs into Smoker’s lap, straddling his thighs. He drapes his arms over Smoker’s shoulders and kisses him. “Ever think I might come by just to piss you off?” he says.

Finally. It had been a long wait for the boy to come to him and longer since the last time they’d done this. But there’s something wrong about it—Ace is still cold. He’s looking for warmth—for heat, for fire. They kiss, in the quiet of his office, though somewhere in his mind Smoker wonders where Ace has gone.

His hands move to Ace’s hips. In a second Ace is pushing him away, like he’s been startled.

“What?” Smoker growls.

“Fuck, just...slow down, old man, hm?”

“Slow down?” Smoker takes him in for another kiss. “That’s not like you.”

He cups Ace’s waist before running his hands down to his thighs, rubbing there. Ace shifts in his lap, and again.

“You don’t want to be here,” Smoker mutters.

“Hmm?”

“Why did you come here if you don’t want sex?”

“What? No no, I wanna be here, I want...” He kisses Smoker again, reaching down to palm him through his slacks. Smoker kisses him back, rough and open. The lack of body heat from Ace makes him snarl. He bites down hard on Ace’s bottom lip.

“Ow, fuck,” the kid says. Blood wells on his lip. He’s squirming again. “If you’re gonna be that way—“

“You still need my help.”

Ace stills. “I dunno if I need it,” he says. “If you won’t help me, I’ll figure it out on my own. And like I said, whatever we try might not work.”

But there’s an unsure look about him, as though he’s trying not to think too much about his prospects. Smoker takes Ace’s chin in his hand and makes him look. “You’d better hope it works, or I’ll throw you in the brig myself.”

Shock crosses his face before it turns into a put out look. “Knew you were bluffing before. You only want to help me so you can fuck me,” Ace scolds. “Horny bastard. Don’t know why I like you when you treat me like this.”

“You don’t like me.”

Ace laughs. His body shakes in Smoker’s arms, “I still come to see you. That means I do like you, dumbass. You don’t get a say.”

Smoker won’t answer. Ace backs off enough to see his face. Sometimes he is so like his brother—mindreading, with the same stare. “You give a shit about this. Stop acting like you don’t around me.”

“Brat,” Smoker growls. Ace smiles.

“That’s what I like to hear.” Suddenly Ace is reaching for his dick again, undoing his belt. “Can I suck you?”

“Thought you didn’t want sex.”

“I never said that.” He’s climbing out of Smoker’s lap and then he kneels in front of Smoker, drawing him out of his pants.

Ace presses his nose to the base of Smoker’s cock and breathes in, mouthing there, up the shaft and to the head before he pulls the foreskin back and kisses the tip, open mouthed and hungry.

“Wanna get you off,” Ace breathes, stroking Smoker with one hand. Smoker grinds his teeth. He’s hard already. Ace meets his eyes when he ducks his head for a suck. How couldn’t he be?

He buries a hand in dark hair and keeps Ace there as he thrusts into Ace’s mouth. It’s the closest thing he can get to any kind of heat but it’s nothing like what he gets from the boy. Ace moans around him, throat flexing, taking him so easy.

And Ace knows this is what he likes. Using him like this, with how good Ace can make it for him. He rolls his hips, fucking Ace’s mouth. The sordid sounds of it make him smile; he sucks in a breath when Ace’s thumb rubs his sack.

And gods, he wants the fire. He tips his head back and lets himself groan through his orgasm.

When it’s over, he looks down at Ace. His other hand is wet with come and his lips are red. A cold shock runs through Smoker, like swallowing ice: there are tears on Ace’s cheeks, eyes wet and red. They don’t steam. Reflexively, Smoker reaches out and swipes them away.

“Thank you,” Ace murmurs.

-

“Smokey.”

It’s Straw Hat, perched on the rubble next to him. He’s got grilled meat on a skewer in one hand and grease on his face.

“Yeah, kid?”

“You’re gonna help Ace?”

Smoker takes a long drag on his cigars, and exhales. “I’m going to try.”

Straw Hat smiles, wide like he ever has, but there’s something sharp to it. Smoker has a notion: one wrong move and he’ll be bitten.

“Good,” he says, and leaves Smoker alone.

-

They place a chair on some deserted, rocky ground not far from the _Thousand Sunny_. Ace sits away from the back of the chair, hunched forward with that twist to his spine. His leg bounces until he sees Smoker approach. He takes a deep breath and stills.

Smoker sees a handful of Straw Hats at the railing, watching—mistrustful, Smoker thinks. He recalls their fight over Nanohana. It wouldn’t compare with what Smoker knows is about to happen.

“Think it’ll work?” Ace says when he’s close enough.

Smoker feels ready to crawl out of his skin. Dissipate—he wants to be all over Ace, so he does. Ace doesn’t move as he’s surrounded by thick smoke. He shivers, up and down his body. When smoke brushes his lips, his mouth opens. Smoker snakes down his throat.

He doesn’t cough, so Smoker keeps going. There’s a heat at the core of him and Smoker teases, tugs. Stokes. Ace grips the edges of the chair. He can feel him there, at the core, burning. If Smoker can stoke him enough—

He explodes into a tower of roaring flame. Smoker follows him, all smoke. They tangle, inseparable from each other. This is what he is always searching for: the intimacy of it. Eventually he doesn’t know himself, doesn’t know anything but the heat and ebbing fire and the echo of Ace’s laughter.

Soon—or much later—they reconcile on the charred ground. Ace is light on his feet, scintillating with embers dancing across his shoulders. The air around him shimmers with heat. “Well?” He says. “How’d I turn out?”

Finally his posture is familiar. The bandages are gone. Yellowing bruises mottle his waist all the way down. There are scratches there too. When Ace turns Smoker finally gets a look at his back. The wounds will scar, disfiguring the tattoo. They are deep, as if Teach’s nails had tried to scoop sections of Ace’s muscle away. Now the stitches have burned away to scabbing. Smoker’s gloves creak as he flexes his hands into fists.

Ace doesn’t seem to notice Smoker’s change. He’s smiling. It’s not happy or even excited; there’s a stab of vengeance in the set of his teeth.

-

“Orders from headquarters, sir,” Tashigi says, passing him a stack of papers. “Instructions to return to Impel Down to incarcerate Teach’s crew. They’re expecting reports about the incident at Banaro in three weeks.”

“They want us to get our asses to Impel Down immediately,” Smoker guesses. Tashigi nods.

“They expect us there by the time the report arrives.”

He looks across the bay at the Thousand Sunny. Ace’s skiff is visible. “Fuck that. These people can’t wait until the next ship arrives. We stay for another two weeks like we planned.”

“Yes, sir,” Tashigi salutes, trying to hide a smile.

-

The knock on the door is no surprise. In a few steps Ace is in his lap again, smiling, right where he should be—not with his brother or his captain, or alone. With him.

“Always wanna fucking be here,” Ace says, almost like a song. Smoker lays him out on the bed, not pressing his weight, just staying over him, keeping him there. “Always wanna come to see you, old man.”

And Smoker does. Ace is hot, and so is his kiss; already their elements are mixing. Smoker takes it and handles Ace’s body, lean in his hands. He bares his teeth at the sight of the marks.

Ace is writhing beneath him with a blissed out look. He grinds up against Smoker’s hips, then suddenly pushes Smoker away like he’s been stabbed.

“I didn’t come here for sex.” He stares at his own hand on Smoker’s chest. “I don’t think...I know that’s where this goes, with us. I can’t right now.”

The air between them is heavy and Smoker has no way to clear it.

“D’you get it?” says Ace.

“I get it.”

“You’re angry,” says the kid, and damn it if they couldn’t tell these things about each other by now.

“That I didn’t get a piece of Teach myself? Yeah.”

Ace tugs him closer by the lapel of his coat until he can wind his arms around Smoker’s neck. Smoker’s arms settle at around waist, squeezing.

“He almost killed you. He was going to.”

“He didn’t. I killed him first.”

Smoker knows that. It doesn’t assuage the possessive rage that rises up whenever he looks at Ace’s body. Smoker sits up and so does Ace, and Smoker pulls him into his lap again.

“Does your brother know?”

“I didn’t tell him. But he knows something’s wrong.”

He can recall the look Straw Hat had given him over Ace’s shoulder in the med bay, and doesn’t doubt it.

“Are you going to apologize for being an ass?” Ace says.

“I don’t apologize to pirates.”

Lips brush his ear. “Figured as much. Wouldn’t want an apology from you anyway. If I was looking for tenderness, I wouldn’t go to you. But I am looking for patience,” Ace said, kiss a brand on Smoker’s skin. “Think I can have that from you?”

Smoker grasps Ace’s hair and presses his face to the juncture of Ace’s neck and shoulder. He can smell him—bright heat and musk and Smoker’s own scent. All his.

He loses track of how long they stay that way, Ace in his lap and perfect, making quiet hums as they touch and kiss. Smoker doesn’t know where is safe, and he feels Ace’s smile when the kid recognizes he’s being mindful.

Ace flares up again, causing Smoker to smother him with smoke in response. He digs flaming hands into his shoulders and smoke rises up to meet him. When they kiss it’s half flesh, half fire and smoke.

“You said you don’t want sex,” Smoker says.

“This isn’t sex,” says Ace. His face is surrounded by a wreath of flame. “And I do want you.”

Despite himself, Smoker knows exactly what he means. Ace cups his face with blazing hands and Smoker dissolves. He cradles the flame with his smoke, stoking the burn but mindful of the ship around them. They come together, until they can’t tell one from the other.

This is what he needs.

-

The next morning it’s hazy in his room. Smoker knows, as he wakes, that Ace will be leaving today.

Ace’s head is tucked beneath his chin and one hot hand is running up and down his chest, a smooth motion. When the kid senses he’s awake, he sits up.

“Thank you for helping me,” he says formally.

“Don’t ever mention it.”

The kid grins. “For a minute there I thought you really were gonna arrest me, Marine.”

Smoker scowls at him and sits up. “Don’t think I won’t.”

He uses his smoke to retrieve his cigars from his jacket, and Ace lights them. He takes a long drag; Ace is watching him.

“You’ll go back to him.”

“Yeah.”

The implication is a wall between them. Ace vaults it.

“You wanna own me,” he says. “You can’t. I’m going to leave. That doesn’t mean I won’t come back.”

“When?”

“I’ll see you again,” Ace says. “As long as you’re chasing Luffy.”

He plucks the cigars from Smoker’s lips and kisses him, and it isn’t long before it’s hot and messy. Smoker is ready to dissolve again.

“You helped me,” Ace says, hushed.

“So what?”

“You want me to be with you. You want me to stay.”

He could’ve shouted it from how it echoes so loud in Smoker’s head. Smoker kisses him, to keep any more words from coming out of his mouth.

Eventually they part to breathe, foreheads pressed together. They’re both gasping. Ace laughs shakily, as if relieved.

“What?”

He speaks for the both of them. “Don’t know what I’d do without this.”

**Author's Note:**

> I’d like to dedicate this piece-of-work-alright to the god of wine and the bottles that put me in the fugue state I needed to write this. One day I might delete this and rewrite it completely.
> 
> I haven’t watched or read OP in about 10 years, sorry if this is off.
> 
> Unbeta’d.


End file.
